— An early Thursday morning nightmare continued into afternoon for Lehigh Valley wrestlers in the opening rounds of the PIAA Class 2A Wrestling Championships.

Of the 32 boys from The Morning Call region who made it to the Giant Center here, only four remain in play for a gold medal heading into Day 2 of a three-day marathon in which the fields have been expanded from 16 to 20 wrestlers in each weight class for the first time.

Making it through to Friday's quarterfinals were Jim Thorpe's Kevan Gentile (106 pounds), Saucon Valley's Jack Hill (113), Pius X's Mike Comunale (152) and Panther Valley's Rian Shubeck, who received a forfeit victory over Greenville's Zach Miller in the first round at 195.

Hill, the only one of five Panthers to qualify for states who didn't lose on the first day, was an 8-5 winner over Muncy's Angelo Barberio. That earned him a quarterfinal berth opposite Central Cambria's Max Murin.

Comunale wasn't seriously challenged in a 7-1 win over Ethan Charlesworth of Mount Pleasant, but he wasn't very satisfied.

"It was all right," he said. "I've been battling a cold pretty badly. This last week, it came on me on a Monday. So I've been battling this week. And toward the end [of Thursday's match], I just wanted to get that major and that last tilt. I didn't get it."

Nevertheless, Comunale will face Benton's Dominic Vitale in the quarterfinals.

Unfortunately for the rest of Lehigh Valley's best, the first day was mostly about excruciating losses.

At 126, Pen Argyl freshman Chase Anklam was fewer than 30 seconds away from a huge upset of undefeated Charles Johnson of Wyoming in the first round. But Johnson was able to get a takedown and ride Anklam the rest of the way to force overtime. The bout eventually went to a tiebreaker, which Johnson won by escaping after masterfully riding Anklam for the full 30 seconds.

Worse yet, when Anklam banged the mat in disgust at the end, a team point was deducted for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Pius X senior Anthony Greggo's first-round match at heavyweight might have been even harder to digest. He allowed a last-second takedown to Keystone's Tyler Beale, who stole a 3-1 decision.

• Saucon Valley's Jason Lynch initially recovered from giving up a reversal in a tiebreaker against Montoursville's Gavin Hoffman to get the escape and force a second stall warning at the buzzer, sending the bout to an ultimate rideout, which he promptly lost anyway by giving up an escape in just 4 seconds.

• At 120, a late escape by Lewisburg's Jordan Gessner gave him a 9-8 decision over Northwestern's Quentin Bernhard in a preliminary match.

• Jason Jones of Saucon Valley was ridden the entire third period of a 1-0 loss to Fort LeBoeuf's Jarrette Carter at 132.

• Notre Dame's Julian Wismer led Ty Smith of Meyersdale by one point entering the third period but gave up an escape and a takedown to lose, 6-5, at 220. Wismer then was eliminated in the first round of consolations when he was pinned by Yough's Tom Sever.

Greggo received a first-round consolation bye and will go against Redbank Valley's Brylee Shumaker on Saturday. But how those last seconds of Greggo's loss went down baffled Pius X coach Pete Stoelzl.

"Sometimes kids can be confusing," Stoelzl said. "As much as you try to help them out with what you want or what should be expected of them … you've got to wrestle out there, you're an athlete.

"That's what I told him: 'You're an athlete. Just go out and wrestle. Let it fall. If you wrestle, I doubt very much from what I can tell that a lot of these kids [will] be able to stay with you. But if you're going to play into their thing where you're just going to dance around and let it up to one takedown to win the match, anybody can win. So you're taking what God has given you, your athletic ability, and you're not using it.' "